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Thursday, September 14, 2006

Another contender for Minister for Daft Ideas

For once I agree with Tom Miller about something.

Pat Hewitt has called for the general public to get to pick the next Labour Leader.

I can't think of anything more likely to reduce Labour's membership below its already pathetic levels than telling people that paying £36 a year for a party card gives them no more democratic rights than any random person who walks in off the street.

The electoral college we have now, with 1/3 of the vote each for the PLP, individual members and the individual members of affiliated trade unions and socialist societies was a compromise reached after years of bitter infighting. It's a fudge but one that ensures that all the main stakeholders in the Labour Party have some say in picking a leader - and particularly that millions of political levy-paying trade unionists get to have a say. Re-opening that can of worms would be a bad, bad move.

7 comments:

  1. Heaven forbid that Labour party members should influence the manifesto!

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  2. "telling people that paying £36 a year for a party card gives them no more democratic rights than any random person who walks in off the street"

    Do you think that people that pay £36 a year should have more democratic rights than any person who doesn't?

    I thought democratic rights were meant to be universal.

    Explain please ...

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  3. Er... you wouldn't expect a vote in the election of chair of your local golf club if you weren't a member of it... so why would you get a vote for leader of the Labour Party if you are not a member of it or one of its affiliates?

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  4. The great thing about the electoral college is that by giving a say to around 6 million levy paying trade unionists it comes about as close to being a primary as you could realistically get in the UK (since there is no provision over here for state funding to cover the cost of full primaries as over the pond - little things like preventing multiple voting don't come cheap after all).

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  5. Bloody hell, Luke, I agree with you. Does this mean I am wrong?

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  6. I'll let you in on a secret: Pay your £15 to Hackney conservatives and hear NOTHING about how to get involved- at all. No meeting info- nothing.

    Given that they didn't campaign here in Hackney, one has to wonder if they even exist. Could it be that mr boff and Mr ollernshaw are the only two?

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  7. Blair also got where he was i.e as a labour PM rather than a labour leader of the opposition partly due to a lot of hard work from party members.

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